In this age of ecumenicalism, where millions are uniting
together under the banner of "we all love Jesus,"
one must ask if this is appropriate and if there
are scriptural boundaries to be considered.

What are the foundations of our faith? What are the doctrines
that we must defend without compromise, even unto death?
Is a mutual declaration that we love Jesus enough to declare that
we are brothers in Christ?

The Bible answers these questions and clearly tells us
what the boundaries are.

Seek neither after a false Gospel or a false God.

The proper definition of heresy is something that compromises
either the cross (how it works or the necessity of it), or the nature
of God (who He is). These things are central
to salvation and compromise in these areas creates a doctrine
sufficiently false that salvation cannot be achieved by believing it.

Other teachings that conflict with the Bible that are not sufficient
for loss of salvation are not properly called
heresy but rather aberrant, non-Biblical, extra-Biblical, or just plain
false teachings.
In truth however we are to avoid all teaching that clearly contradicts
the Bible, and we are to avoid division on peripheral issues
in those gray areas where the Bible is not as specific.

Notice that completely accurate theology is not necessary for one to
be a brother in Christ. Only the foundations have to be right,
or at least right enough to meet the Biblical criteria.

The question of who is God is a foundational one, and Jesus is quite specific
that a false God cannot save:

joh 8:24 I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will
indeed die in your sins." (NIV)

Here Paul chides the Corinthians for being willing to listen to false
teachers:

co2 11:3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve
through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the
simplicity that is in Christ.
co2 11:4 For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have
not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not
received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted,
ye might well bear with him.

Not even angelic appearances are to be believed if they pervert the
Gospel of the cross. Hindsight tells us that these warnings are there
because false angelic appearances are possible and are in fact relatively
common.

gal 1:8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any
other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you,
let him be accursed.
gal 1:9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach
any other gospel unto you than that ye have received,
let him be accursed.

Even if short-term prophecy comes to pass, which is the normal test
of a true prophet, or a miracle worker shows up, you are not to follow them
after other Gods. Notice in this one that the Lord Himself
allows false prophets and false signs in order to test us to see if
we truly love Him or not. Obviously there would be no warnings against
such things if they were not possible.

deu 13:1 If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams,
and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,
deu 13:2 And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake
unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known,
and let us serve them;
deu 13:3 Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or
that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you,
to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart
and with all your soul.

What is the true gospel the Bible commands us to preach?

co1 1:23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and
unto the Greeks foolishness;

Simple enough, but the Devil parses those words and seeks to corrupt
each one just a tiny bit. There are two words that are significant,
Christ (God), and Him crucified (the redemptive work on the cross).

Who is God?

So let us explore the fundamental doctrines (and some of the common errors)
relating to the nature of God.

God is three co-equal persons in one God, they are one in essence,
all are eternal, none existed before the others.

That simple statement has been attacked in numerous devious and subtle
ways throughout history by the enemy.

Most false concepts of God attack either the trinity or the person of Christ.

Who is the Son?

Jesus Christ is the eternally pre-existant son-of-God, the second person
of the Godhead, incarnated into a man, born of a virgin.
During His 33 years on earth He was both fully God and fully human,
and His humanity remains. His divinity was what made all those
miracles possible. Many false teachings have come and gone that deny these
simple biblical truths.

Common errors:

Tritheism - Asserts that God is actually three individuals,
usually it affirms they are one "in purpose" but denies they are
one in essence and being. This is found in Mormonism for example.
Benny Hinn has made many statements implying tritheism also.

The Holy Spirit is an active force
- This denies the personhood of the Holy Spirit that is clearly described
in Scripture. Again this found in Mormonism.
Copeland has an interesting twist on this, he retains the Holy Spirit
as a person but says that faith is an active force,
and God is made of faith. The Bible says God is spirit.

Jesus was just a man
- Asserts that He left His divinity behind (WoF) or never had it (JW).
The Word of Faith movement says that Jesus left His divinity behind,
or never used it while He was here on earth. This denies His divine
nature and denies that He did miracles by His power.
Usually this includes a false teaching that Jesus
needed the Holy Spirit to do all His miracles for Him.
It goes on to say that we have everything Jesus did (the baptism
of the Holy Spirit) and therefore have great power and
authority as Christians.

Others say Jesus was just a man, conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary.
Thus He is the "Son" of God, but He is not God Himself. The Jehovah's
Witnesses for example hold this view.

Jesus is a created being.
Anything denying that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have always been
God is a false teaching. The Mormons teach this one, Jesus was procreated
by God having sex with angels. This allows Jesus to exist long enough
in the past to create the world, but denies that He was always
one with the Father.

Subordinationism - One member of the Godhead is less than or subordinate to another.
They are co-equals in all respects, any teaching to the contrary
is unbiblical.

Oneness Modalism
- Denies the trinity by asserting that the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit are the same
person manifesting differently over time. Usually it is taught that
the Father manifested in the Old Testament, the Son manifested during
the incarnation, and the Holy Spirit is manifesting today.
Oneness Pentecostals, T.D. Jakes, Rod Parsley, Creflo Dollar,
and others espouse this view.

On two seperate occaisions
I have heard the following analogy used by modalists:
"God is like water, Ice is the Father, water is Jesus, and steam
is like the Holy Spirit". This is a clear denial of the Trinity,
and those using the analogy have admitted in other statements
that they are modalists.

Who is Man?

This is important because the cross is salvation for man.
We have to clearly describe why salvation is needed.

Man was created innocent (Adam and Eve). They were created
conditionally immortal, as long as they obeyed God's commands
they would not die. They disobeyed one of the very few
commands God gave them (be fruitful and multiply, subdue the earth,
don't eat the apple). Only eating the apple had any penalty associated with
it. The penalty was death.

Man has a soul and body (see the end for a link to a refutation of
the theory that we have three parts).
The soul is our mind will and emotions, our body is simply that.

When Adam and Eve sinned, they came under the death sentence
immediately, they became hopeless sinners, addicted to evil as it were,
unable to ever change back to the innocence they once had. All capacity
for them to obey God, or to please Him in and of themselves was permanently
and forever lost. This lack of capacity was inherited by all their children
also.
In keeping with the death sentence, their flesh died a few hundred years later.
And their souls went to hell (if they did not believe in the coming messiah).
Hell is called the second death in the Bible,
but it is not a death of oblivion, but rather we are dead to God,
and are sent into eternal punishment for our sins.

More properly, when Adam and Eve ate the apple their innocent nature
was transformed into a sin nature that was passed onto all of their decendents.
Both the death sentence and the iresistable tendency to sin are passed on,
hence the statement that we are born dead. We also generally have no
interest or ability to comprehend the things of God. I don't mean
we can't understand the concepts, but they are utter foolishness to the
natural man.

Therefore man is now both sinner and sinful, an enemy of God,
with no hope in himself.
When it says we are born spiritually dead, it means under the wrath of
God and destined for hell. But our bodies will live for a while.
The irresistable tendency to sin results in actuals sins in everyone.
The tendency to sin is called iniquity. We all have both problems.

Total Depravity - This is the name for the doctrine that man has
no good in him at all from God's perspective. We can neither know God,
nor do we have any desire to know Him. The Bible says we cannot
come to Him except He gives us grace to do so. Consider that salvation
is not just from Hell, but from our sins. All may desire to
go to heaven, but none are willing to give up their sins without
the power of the Holy Spirit. We are sinners and we like it that way
in our natural state.

The Gospel

The entire gospel can be summarized with a few scriptures:

rom 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

mar 1:15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of
God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

rom 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead,
thou shalt be saved.

joh 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.

mat 10:38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

God is a Holy and Righteous judge. The Bible says that no sinner
can stand in His presence and live. God's full presence will annihilate
the sinner. Man however does not wish to admit he is a sinner.
The law was given for this express purpose, to show us
the high view of God's holiness so that we can know that none
of us can measure up. Any proper presentation of the Gospel
will have the law as part of it. It is meaningless to present
salvation without making clear the need for it.

Now this might seem to have presented God with a problem.
He lost all of His children to sin, and His holiness does not allow
Him to just ignore our transgressions. Every sin is treason
against Him, every sin is willful disobedience, and is a crime
worthy of death. Many Gospel presentations fail to sufficiently
stress how much God hates sin, and that hell represents His unbridled
and just wrath poured out eternally on those who so richly deserve it.
Becoming a true Christian includes understanding just how far
we are from righteousness, and how truly wicked we really are.

Howewever, while God declares we are evil, He admits we will make
great sacrifices for our children, and points out that He is good
and is therefore willing to make much greater sacrifices than we are.

In fact God planned from the beginning to save us because
He knew what was going to happen from the outset. And His plan
involved a supreme sacrifice on His part, a sacrifice made for love
and made absolutely necessary to satisfy His perfect justice.

Under the Mosaic Law, the vehicle God sent us to show us how wicked
and sinful we really are (talented self-deception is part of our
sinful nature), God provides for the sacrifice of innocent blood to cover
our sins. Animal sacrifice however is just a foreshadowing of what
was going to happen.

God incarnated Jesus into a sinless body (without sin and without iniquity).
The Bible says it was impossible for Him to sin,
but states that He was tempted by all things common to man.
So Jesus was tempted, just as Adam was, but He did not fall, as being God
it was impossible for Him to do so.

This made Jesus able to die in our place as the spotless lamb of God,
to shed His blood, to atone (pay for) our sins, all of them we ever
have and ever will commit, once and for all in a single act.
Put another way, God paid the price for us to satisfy
His own law. God could not just ignore His law, for He is perfect,
and to do that would make Him into a liar.

It is important to point out that nothing less than a sinless sacrifice
would do. Christ had to die, nothing less would have satisfied God's perfect
justice (holiness), and nothing less would do to redeem His children
to satisfy His love for us. The cross is the greatest act of love
in all history. It is a selfless act by a loving and merciful God
who loves each and every one of us personally.

That Jesus died in our place is called the substitutionary atonement.
It is His shed blood that is the payment for our sins. We are
declared legally righteous and perfect before God, this is called
justification.
This justification is appropriated exactly one way, by faith.
The idea that He died in our place and paid the price for our sins,
that we are justified by faith alone,
is the core doctrine of salvation, the very heart of it,
and has come under much attack throughout the centuries.

eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves:
it is the gift of God:
eph 2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

Jesus' righteousness is said to be imputed to us,
that is credited to us by God.
There are three imputations in the Bible:
Adam's sin imputed to us,
our sins imputed to Jesus on the cross,
and His righteousness imputed to us.

It is important to note that Jesus died for His sheep, as the Bible says,
salvation is technically offered to everyone, but only those God planned
in advance to save will actually be saved. Thus the work on the cross
secured the definite salvation of those in God's plan, the cross was
not just opening a door for people to be saved later, it was all
part of an eternal plan from the foundation of the world.

God's proof that Jesus' sacrifice was sufficient is that Jesus
was raised from the dead. Without the resurrection the Christian
Gospel is nothing:

co1 15:14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your
faith is also vain.

Therefore any teaching that denies a literal and physical resurrection
of Jesus is also heretical. Many teachings denying this have come and gone
throughout history by various cult groups.

Salvation

Jesus' death on the cross paid for our sins, but this full pardon
does not take effect in our lives until we are born-again, or regenerated
as the theologians call it. Contrary to popular belief, regeneration
happens first, as a sovereign act of God, a regenerate person will
do the following (thus proving they are regenerate):

Face their sins and admit their guilt before God.

Believe in Him and His plan of salvation,
the death and resurrection of Christ.

Repent of their sins, which means to turn from them and they
will follow Christ for the rest of their days.

Understand they are declared righteous by the Blood of Christ,
not by their own works.

The Bible makes it clear that nobody can do this without the Holy
Spirit, regeneration is a prerequisite for the above, not a result of it
as is commonly taught in some circles. The Bible also makes a
distinction between those who merely profess Christ, and those who
actually obey His commands.
They are referred to as wheat vs. tares, and wise vs. foolish virgins.
Bible prophecy chronicles the fate of both groups. Suffice it
to say that one is good and one isn't.

co1 12:3 Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the
Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is
the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.

One false doctrine related to salvation is Pelagianism, named
after its founder, and is basically
full-blown salvation by works, it denies total depravity, and says
that anyone can live a sinless life (once their previous sins have been
forgiven), and is essentially a Gospel of moral behavior, and earn
your way to heaven. Since the Bible declares that any attempt
to earn your salvation is to fall from grace (a euphemism for
you ain't going to get into heaven that way), it is thus classified
as soul-killing heresy and was justly denounced as such by early
church councils.

A later version of Pelagianism that wasn't as overtly heretical is
Arminianism,
although in some ways it is more dangerous because it is more subtle.
Unlike Pelagianism, Arminianism admits we need the Holy Spirit's help
to come to God, but the the final decision still rests in us, and not
in God (again flies in the face of many scriptures).

After that it generally manifests as salvation by works, as a moralistic
movement, but unlike Pelagianism acknowledges our dependence on God.
It refuses to admit that God does it all for us as a free gift,
and can deny that moral living is a consequence of salvation and rather
sees it as a necessity to maintain one's salvation since salvation
can be lost in Arminian thinking. Often it is reduced to a single
element of morality to maintain one's salvation, that of maintaining
one's faith in Christ, completely ignorant of
the fact that Christ has promised to do that for us.

Arminianism is named after its originator, Jacobus Arminius, although
he merely repeats what some early church fathers (who disagreed with
Augustine) also said.
In practice is is really a refinement of much older Pelagianism
and is often called semi-pelagianism for that reason.
The doctrine is essentially we can and must save ourselves by responding
positively to God's offer of salvation and to the urging of the Holy
Spirit. It is most commonly expressed today by asserting that
the born-again or regenerative event occurs after one makes the
decision to "believe" in Christ.

This turns God into a weakling who stands on the sidelines,
hoping (or merely foreknowing who will respond to the Gospel).
The true God reigns, and decides whom He will save and whom He won't.
There are many scriptures to support this.

Arminianism was considered a full-blown heretical viewpoint by
parts of the reformation, but is generally considered to be
"within-the-fold" but "in-error" by most reformation thinkers.
Its greatest supporter is undoubtedly John Wesley whose major
contribution was to add a strong evangelical focus to it
(as it was lacking that before).

I struggled with the issue of whether Arminians are Christians at all,
some periods of the reformation (notably the council of Dort) thought
it was soul killing heresy. But Augustine (who first faced it)
did not, neither did Spurgeon, and neither does R.C. Sproul, John
MacArthur, and other notables today. Mr Sproul points out that
Arminianism in its pure form, affirms sola fide (faith alone),
but denies sola gratia (grace alone), and is therefore orthodox
on the most important point and does not fall into salvation
by works such as Pelagianism does. Like Spurgeon, Sproul acknowledges
that Arminians can be saved "but just barely".
For the best treatment of it I have ever encountered
see Sproul's book "Willing to Believe: The Controversy over Free Will."
In it he traces the development of Arminianism, and gives thorough
and priceless treatment of it.

Sadly, Arminianism became the majority viewpoint among professing
protestants after Charles Finney greatly popularized it in the 1850's,
although Finney went far beyond Arminianism in his theology
and was fully Pelagian in his beliefs and teachings.

Put succinctly, Finney was a moralist, and believed that one
got into heaven by living a moral life. One lost one's salvation
everytime one sinned, and had to confess it to God, and ask for
forgiveness to regain right-standing. This is identical to the
heretical teachings of Rome, except it bypasses the priest
by confessing ones sins directly to God.

The main problem with Arminianism is it subtleness, and the
fact that most Arminians aren't taught any doctrine at all,
it is just a loose unsystematic idea that you pray a sinners
prayer and get born again (which reverses what Scripture says about it).
So it is difficult to make any categorical statement such as all
Arminians are saved or not, because most of them don't know what they
believe anyway.

Spurgeon described Arminianism as dangerous ground however,
and that very little more false doctrine would be needed before their
ship sank. My personal opinion is that false doctrine clings to
modern Arminians like barnacles and that many of their boats won't float.
In part the origin of this website was to point that out.
Like Spurgeon, I also believe that one can be saved and remain an
Arminian, but it is dangerous ground.

One reason why these doctrines cause so much trouble is that the Bible
clearly teaches that both (limited) free-will and predestination is in
full force at the same time, and this is very hard for our
natural minds to swallow. The mistake we make is to believe
our feelings. It can feel like we decided for Christ on our own,
even though the Bible tells us we only acted because we were regenerated
by the power of the Holy Spirit. Arminians say we have the ability
to resist the Holy Spirit, and Calvinists say we do not,
but without the convicting power of the Holy Spirit both groups
generally admit we have no ability nor desire to come to Christ.
Thus, tacitly, even Arminians admit that our free-will is limited.

Martin Luther correctly described the paradox of free-will vs. predestination
as a mystery and stopped there and said so we should because that
is where the Bible itself stops. He did however write scathing
attacks on those who believed that our wills determined who is saved.
Luther Considered his "Bondage of the Will" to be his most important work.

Augustine, Luther, and Calvin all described "limited" free-will
in scathing terms. They liken us as slaves to our sinful
desires. The only freedom we have is which sinful desires we are
going to gratify. We are completely "willing" sinners as it were.

However, theology that denies either predestination or (limited) free-will
ends up being unbalanced. This may seem like useless intellectualism,
but acting on either form of unbalanced theology has real consequences as
I shall demonstrate.

In popular terminology we call regeneration a changed heart.
He secures the cooperation of our wills by changing
our hearts. You will hear it said that only God can change a heart
and this phrase describes the core of the orthodox Christian doctrine
of salvation.

Put in even simpler terms, God chooses us, we don't choose Him.
Any testimony that says "I decided for Christ" is rooted in a
false understanding of how one gets saved in the first place.

Unfortunately, much of modern evangelism is built around the
decision theology of Arminianism gone too far. We believe we
must cajole, coerce, trick, and otherwise entice people
to accept Christ, and we try to make the Gospel more
palatable to the seeker thinking this will produce
more salvations. This is called seeker-friendly
evangelism, and the Gospel they preach is called easy believism.
It waters down the Gospel, try to make it relevant to
cultural norms, and preach a positive, attractive Gospel that in
the end is no Gospel at all.

The true Gospel is offensive to our sensibilities. It calls us wretched,
worthless sinners who must flee from the wrath of a holy and righteous God
who hates sin. It hurts our egos because it does not embrace
self-fulfillment and self-esteem but rather it expects self-denial
and self-hatred. And it is demanding, only those who follow Christ, that
is obey Him, submit to Him, and surrender their lives totally to Him will
be saved. Lip service will count for nothing on judgement day.

Those who shy away from teaching the hard teachings of the Bible
demonstrate they don't really believe that the Gospel message itself
is the "power of God unto salvation". Rather they place their
faith in the clever arguments of men.

One of the key points many don't understand is that it is hard to get saved.
John MacArthur rightly points out that until you have completely abandoned
all hope in self (self-righteousness) you haven't even entered
the narrow gate.

Jonathan Edwards wrote the same thing, pointing out that God often lets
a person try to reform themselves for years, before they finally come to
the end of themselves, realizing their complete spiritual bankruptcy,
and are finally ready to bow the knee and trust in Christ alone as their savior.

Many a modern Arminian says (wrongly), just invite Jesus into your heart
and you will be saved, the Calvinist says (rightly), without repentence
and acknowlement of your total spiritual bankruptcy there is no salvation.

Deviating in the other direction are the Hyper-Calvinists, who like
the Calvinists are named after John Calvin who was a great theologian
and was accused (wrongly) of overemphasizing predestination.
The Hyper-Calvinists are not wrongfully accused however (unlike
mainstream orthodox Calvinists).

Hyper-Calvinism comes in several forms, some Christian and some not.
Extreme hyper-Calvinistic views (similar to fatalism and fully heretical)
seperates faith from salvation, saying the "elect" of God
are predetermined regardless of what the "elect" say, believe, or do.
In milder forms (generally called high-Calvinism) it overemphasizes the
sovereignty of God at the cost of the responsibility of the believer.
In its mildest form it merely asserts that God
created some people expressely for the purpose of damnation to glorify
His holiness and righteous judgement (Arthur Pink held this view for example).

The only real problem of the mildest form is that it denies God's
love towards sinners, and verses that God desires that nobody perish,
that He takes no pleasure in the death of a sinner, and so on.
In fact that is the chief distinguishing mark of hyper-Calvinism in my mind,
it over-emphasizes God's hatred towards sinners.

Various things associated with hyper-calvinism include
the idea that little or no preaching of the Gospel is needed, since what is
going to happen is going to happen anyway. It is also accused of encouraging
a mechanical presentation of the Gospel. In some forms it also
demands rigid acceptance to theological details in order to be saved at all,
and often asserts that only Calvinists go to heaven, and
denies that Arminians can be saved.

A particularly rabid form that seems to be growing in popularity today
is the idea that only Calvinists are saved, and that if you accept
Arminians as Christians, you have embraced a false gospel and are
therefore unsaved yourself. This viewpoint brands all the people
I mentioned (Augustine, Spurgeon, R.C. Sproul, not to mention myself)
as "dead calvinists", those who have refused to repent of accepting
Arminians as brothers in Christ. While the divisiveness they cause
is lamentable and even sinful, they do appear to be Christians otherwise.
My recommendation is to flee from any such teachings, and to treat
them as under church discipline, that is avoid association with them.

Hyper-Calvinism frequently denies that your faith is your primary
subjective evidence of salvation and asserts rather that you must have
some other experience in order to be saved. Hyper-Calvinism also tends
to preach a seeker-hostile gospel, overemphasizing the sovereignty of God,
and saying there is nothing you can do if God has not chosen you for salvation.
This ignores Jesus' statement that He would reject none who came to Him.
Jesus said this right after He said that nobody could come to Him
unless the Father draws them, thus the case for mainstream Calvinism
is made in those few verses (John 6:39...).

The correct viewpoint is that if you believe in Christ enough to follow
and obey Him through temptations and trials, since faith is
a gift of God, then you are one of the chosen. It is that simple.

I was wrongfully lead to believe that mainstream Calvinism
overemphasizes predestination until I read some of the great Calvinists
themselves.
They teach (as the Bible states) that predestination and (limited)
free-will are simultaneously in full force. In answer to the charge
that Calvinists are not evangelical enough It can be mentioned
that the greatest evangelists of the reformation (spanning centuries)
were all Calvinists (with a few exceptions, notably John Wesley,
and Charles Finney).

It has been observed that Hyper-Calvinism only thrives
during revivals of Calvinism, I think the same thing could be said
of Pelagianism vs. Arminianism.
Thus Pelagianism is to Arminianism, as Hyper-Calvinism is to Calvinism,
they are the Devil's extreme viewpoints that corrupt the more orthodox
positions and are designed to corrupt and destroy those who
seek to be loyal to Christ.

So where is the center of orthodoxy you ask? All I can offer is is this:
Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, Charles Spurgeon, not to mention
John Calvin, Martin Luther, Saint Augustine, Saint Paul, and Jesus Himself
all taught a theology that could be essentially branded as Calvinism.

Arminianism may not seem like that big of a problem, but it is
essentially salvation by works (minimally a single work of responding to God,
and is usually mixed in with worse things).
It also denies the sovereignty of God (they say God knew in advance,
but this falls short, because the Bible says God planned in advance
and makes the decision of who will be saved and who won't).

Arminianism appeals to pride in that you made the right decision and others
have not. It encourages pride when through your efforts others also make
the right decision for Christ. It instills fear in that you
have the possibility of losing your salvation (works
become required as a requisite to maintain your salvation).

Decision theology (Arminianism) also encourages us to cajole, lure,
and otherwise coerce people into making a decision for Christ.
The Gospel-lite (a perverted watered down Gospel) is what is preached
by many Arminians today. It bears little resemblance to the true
Gospel of Jesus Christ, since to make the gospel more "palatable"
or "seeker-friendly" they minimize sin, hell, and God's righteous judgment
and overemphasize God's love and grace and mercy.

John MacArthur created a huge controversy about 15 years back when he
came out and said that those who preach easy believism (failing
to stress the necessity of repentance and facing your own
sinfulness) are ravening wolves and not ministers of the true
Gospel at all. He also earned himself the status of hero to
those of us who still cling to an orthodox view of salvation.

The proper balance is that God is both righteous judge, and loving and merciful.
God will never compromise either aspect of Himself, and neither should
we.

The Gospel properly presented covers both sides of God. We preach the
(moral) law first, to awaken man to their awful state as sinners,
that the eternal wrath of God will be poured out on all such people.
Then we preach grace, that their only escape is through repentance,
and taking up their cross and following Jesus, and that they
will share in His sufferings by doing so.

Another interesting fact is that
Arminianism (or any more serious kind of works thinking) prevents assurance
of salvation. When it was your decision to "accept" Christ, you remain on
the hook to maintain that decision. Fear and doubt will ever accompany
the Arminian, which breeds striving to maintain one's righteousness
and salvation.

By contrast Calvinism is more correctly described as the doctrine
of grace. We are saved by grace through faith - not of ourselves
that no flesh may boast. Since Arminianism is essentially a philosophy
of pride and salvation by works, it quenches grace, and hence the spirit.

In honesty I have met Arminians who seem to be true converts,
who are loyal to the Bible and do not engage in many of the things
I have mentioned here. Most Arminians, at least the ones I accuse
of preaching a watered down Gospel, don't focus on doctrine at all,
but rather they focus on a feel-good, self-help style of christianity
focussed on self-gratification and even self-deification,
and thus Arminianism is only the first of many errors that they
engage in. This is better described as Arminianism gone too far,
where the thin line has been crossed into unorthodoxy, and the true
Gospel of repentance has been all but forgotten.

Another hallmark of modern Arminianism is its emphasis on experience
and emotionalism (which crosses easily into gnosticism
unfortunately). Finney (the heretic) was really the father of
modern emotionalism. Since emotionalism appeals more to women,
critics call it the feminization of the church, and it is no surprise
that more women than men attend such churches (which is the majority
of protestant churches today). Finney was the first to discover that
women could be seduced with emotionalism and that they tend
to bring their men with them. The practice is mainstream now.

Sadly, when it was once considered heresy, Arminian thinking is the
majority view today. Virtually all charismatic thinking today is Arminian.
There are also non-charismatic denominations today that
are Arminian in their thinking. John Wesley, who influenced Methodism
to hold this view, was an Arminian.
Catholicism is more Pelagian (although not fully Pelagian either)
(and has other more serious heresies in its theology),
there are others but I do not have an extensive list.

Other (serious) errors in the area of salvation include errors such
as the cross was somehow not enough. This is the cross plus
something else mentality and is generally full blown heresy. There are
a lot of variations on that (false) theme, Catholicism is a cross-plus theology
for example because of their Pelagian reliance on holy living, their
dependence upon the sacraments and the virgin Mary as co-redemptrix
with Christ. The word of faith movement teaches that Christ went to hell
after His death on the cross to fully pay for our sins and that
any born-again believer could have done that just like Jesus did
by dying on the cross for our sins. It also deifies Christians
and marginalizes God and by all appearances
is identical to New Age teaching.

The Cost Of Salvation

While nothing man can do can earn salvation, nevertheless the cost is high,
that is it will cost you everything. Abandoning all hope in self is more
than just a realization of your own worthlessness, you also have to
be willing to abandon anything and everything for Him.

Jesus said repeatedly that if you love parents, brothers, sisters,
or anything more than Him, then you re not worthy of Him.

In some parts of the world today, this is hard to understand because
the price does not appear that high, but in the parts of the world
where Christians are put to death, it makes sense.

The point is you must be willing to give up all for Him, He may not
call upon you for that much sacrifice, but to enter the narrow gate,
the willingness must be present.

Born-Again.

This topic is greatly misunderstood, not so much about what it is, but when
it occurs and under whose agency:

Jesus said:

joh 3:3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily,
I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

The gospel-lite folks tell us that you just pray a "sinners prayer", and
boom, you are born again and you will go to heaven. Often that sinners
prayer is devoid of the concept of our total depravity and hopelessness
before God, it often omits the need for repentance of sins, and fails to stress
that only God defines what is sin, and it often omits the authority
of scripture, that to accept Christ is to accept the Bible as His
infallible literal word. It is often implicitly Arminian in that
it says you will be born again after you pray the prayer, thus
you must complete that work in order to go to heaven.

Here is a quote from R. C. Sproul (on the John Ankerberg show) that
perfectly describes what actually goes on:

"Now in the classical reformed view of Calvin and Luther, the order of
salvation went like this: that first, before I can believe and meet
the requirement of faith, in order to receive and appropriate the
righteousness of Christ for my justification, something has to happen
to my heart, because I'm fallen, I'm dead in sin and the Holy Spirit
has to change the disposition of my heart, and we call that regeneration
or rebirth. As a result of that work of the Holy Spirit, now I am able
to and indeed do embrace Christ in faith. So, I am reborn—I have faith.
As a consequence of the faith I am justified."

The order is that we are silently born-again by the Spirit of God,
usually during or soon after we hear the Gospel preached. Being
born-again allows us to believe the Gospel we have heard,
to realize our wretched lost state as sinners before an angry God,
to repent of those sins, to trust in Jesus for forgiveness of
our sins, and to take up our cross, and to follow Him.
That is true saving faith.

There is no altar call or sinners prayer in the Bible, there are those
who believe and are baptized and follow Christ, and those who do not.
Prior to 1850 all new believers were baptized at the moment of confession.
The "altar call" was an invention of Charles Finney, a man who denied the
basic tenets of the Christian faith. He improvised this method because
he had so many people come forward in his meetings to "accept Christ"
that they couldn't hope to baptize them in a timely manner.
And history shows us that the vast majority of Finney's converts were
false conversions. Those who pray a small prayer, often in great
emotionalism, but fail to follow Christ and fall away afterwards,
were never born-again in the first place.

Jesus is coming again.

This may not seem relevant to salvation but is in fact critical.

ti2 4:1 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who
shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;

Salvation is entirely about what happens to us on judgement day.
We are going to appear before a righteous and holy God and give an
account for our lives. Only two possibilities exist:
We will be aquitted on the basis that Jesus paid for our sins,
or we will be forced to pay the price ourselves with
an eternity spent in Hell. Without the return, there is no judgement day,
nor is there any need for salvation.

There is a verse in the Bible where it says that when Jesus returns
he will reward all according to their works. How do we reconcile that
with the clear teaching that justification is only by faith? The idea
being expressed is that our works are the evidence we are Christians,
we are not in any way justified by works, nor do they earn us the
least little brownie point with God, but they are the evidence that
we are His, and thus eligible for the full pardon on judgement day.
They are the external evidence of a changed heart. Those whose
hearts aren't changed, even if they try to emulate some good works,
will be condemned on judgement day. Much has been written on this,

Furthermore, Jesus is returning physically to rule and reign on the earth.
He is returning to bring His literal physical kingdom to earth.

Any teaching that denies a physical literal return of Jesus Christ
is as much heresy as any teaching that denies He came the first time.
One example of this view is full preterism
which asserts that all prophecy was fulfilled in 70 AD and denies
a literal physical second coming of Christ.

Full preterism is a perversion of the more orthodox
partial preterism, which asserts that most prophecy was fulfilled by 70 AD,
but correctly holds the second coming as still future.

Note: depending on your eschatology (end-times theology) there are
either one or multiple judgement days, premillennialists believe in
at least two: one for the saved, and one for the damned.

The Resurrection.

Part and parcel of the second coming is the idea that everyone
will be resurrected on judgement day and face judgement. Death
is not annihilation, but rather we go to one of two
places that represent a holding area or waiting room
pending judgement day. Saved people go to Heaven, and unsaved
people go to what we also refer to as Hell.
Heaven is described as a wonderful place where we are
in God's presence.

Post judgement day saints will live in the Heavenly City with God.
The post-judgement-day place where people are tormented for
eternity is actually referred to as the lake of fire,
and appears to be worse than Hell, although Hell is also
described as a place of torment.

Sanctification.

While not central to salvation, a lot of pain is caused by misunderstanding
sanctification so I am going to mention it here.
Like salvation, it is entirely a work of the Holy Spirit, but it will
feel as if we have to cooperate with it.
It may even feel like we do it alone, just like it might feel like we made
a decision for Christ, but He gets the credit because He claims it fully:

"Without me you can do nothing."

Under no circumstances can we gain anything, brownie points before God,
more spirituality, or anything else by works. Remember this kind
of thinking is Pelagianism and is ultimately fatal.

Nevertheless we are called to works, and to live a holy life,
not to earn anything, but because we are bought with a price.
God has given us the free gift of salvation.
Jesus calls us to a life of service to Him, which is our
joyful response to the wonderful gift He has given us.
In fact, as Martin Luther points out (see my bible study on
grace
), our works are justified in
the same way our lives are, by the atonement. Thus our lives
are pleasing to Him, not because of ourselves or those works,
but by grace through faith, the same way we are saved.

Another facet of sanctification is that by its nature we become
increasingly aware of our own sinfulness and helplessness before
God. Sometimes this occurs in spurts and can cause doubts that
one was ever truly saved before. This is in fact normal
sanctification and whether you get it in spurts or gradually,
it is one of the evidences that God is working in your life.
You can also expect this awareness to continue to increase
during this lifetime. So, paradoxically, for the true Christian,
self-esteem actually goes down as we progress, but our faith in God,
and our understanding of the depths He rescued us from
increases correspondingly.

The end result of sanctification is that we will never
be sin-free in this lifetime. There are promises that we can expect to
be set free from besetting sins, sins that we are enslaved to or addicted to.
The promise is not that it won't be hard, only that it will be possible,
although it may remain a struggle for the rest of your life.
Paul gives a full description of sanctification in Romans.
In the resurrection we will be given new bodies that cannot sin.
Since we willingly give God permission to do this
it does not violate our free will at all.

Note: While not necessarily heretical, there are a vast number of
teachings that add to the simplicity of
Christ by adding little rules here and there that you must adhere to
in order to be a "good" Christian. If it isn't in the Bible,
and part of the New Covenant (the Law is fulfilled), then
don't believe it. I don't mean throw out all of the law,
as the New Covenant pulls in parts of the law by reference,
most of the Ten Commandments (all but the Sabbath day),
and the Law's definition of sexual sin for example are part
of the New Covenant commandments. But we are not justified
by obeying those parts, rather we obey them because
we are saved and are being sanctified.

Put another way, only God gets to define sin, traditions of men add
to God's commands a thousand little things we should do or not do:
no smoking, excercise, avoid movies, avoid TV, skirt length, makup, hairstyle,
... This is called pietism today and is what the Pharisees did,
they added many many rules on top of God's law, thus nullifying it
in favor of traditions of men.

The pietists are right that the self-indulgent
life will not go to heaven, but grafting in the does and don'ts
of the world by calling them sin is a false teaching.
That said, many of those do's and don't have excellent reasons behind
them (such as modern diet and nutrition in a positive example,
and the filth contained in many modern movies as a negative one),
but they should never be confused with God's prescriptive commands.

On the flip side however, and this is the part the pietists get right,
the Bible condemns worldliness, and calls us to live seperated lives.
Personally I think this is undertaught here in America. Avoiding
worldliness is all but forgotten in many circles, and in many
cases the Church is seeking to emulate the world, usually
under the guise of seeker-sensitivity.

Why?

Why does God save us? This one causes much confusion, the "love" answer
is too simplisitic and does not cover all the scriptures. Generally
the scriptures say everything is done for His good pleasure and glory,
but what about us in particular?

The true Christian is primarily concerned with God's glory, in contrast
to the world who are preoccupied with self. Everything we do, how we
act, and how we live, has God's glory as its primary purpose.
Holiness in living and purity in heart glorifies God, loving
each other glorifies God, obedience glorifies God.

More simply put, we are saved for two purposes, to worship and serve.
To become both Martha and Mary, and Jesus said to Martha that
worship is better than service, thus clearly defining our priorities.
Jesus says He desires worship in spirit and in truth.
Simply put, as John MacArthur points out
(in Worship),
we were saved so that we can worship God acceptably. We
are saved out of falsehood and from a spiritually dead state into
truth and life, and now our worship is acceptable to Him.

The second priority is service, let us not do what Martha did and
assume that service is the first priority. The primary purpose
in going to church, and how we carry out our lives is for worship,
service is the second priority. In Revelation Jesus chides a church
for leaving their first love forsaking worship of Him for church
programs and service.

The last priority is what we get out of it. If we go to church to
be ministered to (to be "fed" as some call it), to get a blessing,
or even to hear a great sermon, then we have missed the point entirely.
Some people worship expecting to get an emotional charge out of it,
and wrongfully attribute their emotions to the "presence of God."
Those same people seek out churches with the best entertainment,
and call it seeking "His presence", when in fact they are only
seeking self-gratification.

While strong emotions can accompany true worship, they
are not the evidence of it. Ecstatic feelings in fact tend
to be associated with the occult and the apostate churches
who place feelings as higher priority than truth, and so
do not offer acceptable worship at all.

It is a humble heart, sound doctrine, and an attitude of reverence to God
that are the marks of true worship.

The Authority of Scripture

Allow me to apologize for putting this one last, as it is actually
the foundation upon which all the rest is built.

Conservative Christians believe that the Bible is exclusively
God's literal infallible word to us (the orginal languages only).
Thus they can be trusted as infallible and authoritative on everything
and anything that God wants to say to us.
The Bible itself makes these claims, we merely acknowledge them to be true.

One must accept the Bible as God's word, and submit to it as God's
expression of His will and authority. Failure to do this,
effectively means denial of God's authority which effectively
means denial of Christ.

Another important thing is to never go beyond scripture. Revelation
itself is quite clear about that hard and fast mandate. And yet
Charismaticism for example is filled with extra-biblical revelations
and teachings. It also encourages it's people to seek private
revelations from God on a regular basis, in direct violation of Scripture.

Vast apologetic materials in support of the inerrancy of scripture exist.
If you look for them you will find them, so I suggest you look
if you have doubts in this area and are at least willing to examine the
evidence. May I suggest Josh McDowell's work "Evidence that Demands a Verdict."
in two volumes. It is a bit overwhelming, but it is thorough and complete.
It is organized as an encyclopedic reference work, look up your pet objection,
and find the information refuting those arguments. For the same reason
it is a highly useful source of apologetic material.

Summary

To summarize the foundations of the faith, let me quote John MacArthur
talking about one of his appearances on the Larry King show:
He said there are two things (and only two) he tries to say every chance
he gets whenever he appears on LKL:
"The Bible is the only authorititative word from God,
and Jesus is the only savior."

Supporting Ideas

While not directly related to the Gospel, these ideas are necessary
for the Gospel to have meaning.

The Nature of truth.

Truth is objective and knowable by all. This is in direct opposition
to postmodernism, the philosophy predominant today that says
truth is relative and is in the eye of the beholder.
Effectively post-modernism denies that there is any absolute truth
(or at least any that we can know as humans).
It is a defeatist and fatalistic philosophy at its core.
It is also hedonistic and self-seeking which is why it is popular.

Put another way, ever hear the famous question: "if a tree falls in
the forest and nobody is there to see it, did it really fall?"
The postmodernists would say not, or at least you can't know for
sure that it did. Those who believe in objective truth would say
of course it did, and add that the question is stupid and meaningless.
Since when is pitiful man needed to be present for reality to exist?
Truth and the universe go on regardless
of how twisted or ignorant our misconceptions of it may be.
Put another way, gravity works whether we believe in it or not.
It works whether we understand it or not, and it does not care in the least
about our opinions of it.

Postmodernism also bears striking resemblances to gnosticism, a heresy
the Church faced for the first three centuries (well it never truly
went away, gnosticism spawned many forms of false thinking that persist
to this day). One of the things
gnosticism taught was that truth is learned experiencially. In other
words, each person has to walk their own path and discover the truth
for themselves. And everyone would discover their own truth.

In that respect gnosticism is identical to postmodernism in that it
denies objective absolute truth. I have read so-called Christian books
that claim Christians only perceive as much truth as the Holy Spirit
reveals to them, and that this varies from person to person.

You will find gnostic thinking throughout the Church today, as people
tout their own personal visions over the Bible, and value what
"God said to me last week" over what God says in His Word.

The Bible teaches however that the foundations of the faith are absolute,
and are to be known by all.

Postmodernism and gnosticism are a direct fulfillment of the following Scripture:

pro 21:2 Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the LORD pondereth
the hearts.

In other words, every man does what is right in his own eyes because each
is the keeper of his own "truth".

Without absolute truth that is knowable by all, there is no Gospel.

Jesus went so far as to claim He is the truth:

joh 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man
cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Everyone can understand the truth, since the Gospel is simplicity itself,
what is at stake is whether you believe it, whether you accept it
as the power of God unto salvation or reject it as foolishness (1 cor 1:18).

References

The Five Basic Doctrines
- Here Sandy Simpson gives us a more detailed discussion of the five
basic doctrines of the evangelical faith. He also gives many examples
of how modern false teachers violate those doctrines. He also has
an excellent discussion of which doctrines are cause for disfellowship
and which are not.

For a much more in depth treatment of the basics, see
John MacArthur's book "The Gospel According to Jesus" - it
presents the view that salvation and repentance go together,
and develops the faith vs. works idea that frankly, is hard
to get right the first time, hence my recommendation of the book.